Examples of Schemes: Repetition

Alliteration

Repetition of initial or medial consonants in two or more adjacent words, as demonstrated in the following examples, respectively.

Examples:

Better business builds bigger bankrolls

"Sparkling, flavorful, Miller High Life"

Assonance

Repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants, in the stressed syllables of adjacent words.

Example :

Tess, it would be best if you'd refresh your zest for the kettle

Polyptoton

Repetition of words derived from the same root.

Example :

But alas...the gate is narrow, the threshold high, few are chosen because few choose to be chosen. —Aldous Huxley

Antanaclasis

Repetition of a word in two different senses.

Example :

If we don't hang together, we'll hang separately. —Benjamin Franklin

Anaphora

Repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses.

Example :

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing-grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. —Winston Churchill, Speech in the House of Commons, June 4, 1940.

Epistrophe

Repetition of the same word or group of words at the ends of successive clauses.

Example :

To the good American many subjects are sacred: sex is sacred, women are sacred, children are sacred, business is sacred, America is sacred, Mason lodges and college clubs are sacred. —George Santayana, Character and Opinion in the United States

Epanalepsis

Repetition at the end of a clause of the word that occurred at the beginning of the clause.

Example :

Year chases year, decay pursues decay. —Samuel Johnson, "The Vanity of Human Wishes."

Anadiplosis

Repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause.

Example :

The crime was common, common be the pain. —Alexander Pope, "Eloise to Abelard"

Note: This figure is often combined with climax. See below.

Climax

Repetition of the scheme anadiplosis at least three times, with the elements arranged in an order of increasing importance.

Example :

Having power makes [totalitarian leadership] isolated; isolation brees insecurity; insecurity breeds suspicion and fear; suspicion and fear breed violence --Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, The Permanent Purge, Politics in Soviet Totalitarianism

Antimetabole

Repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order. (Sometimes mistaken as chiasmus)

Example :

One should eat to live, not live to eat. --Moliere

Chiasmus

Repetition of grammatical structures in reverse order in successive phrases or clauses (not to be mistaken with antimetabole). In the following example, the pattern is present participle-infinitive; infinitive-present participle.

Example :

It is boring to eat; to sleep is fulfilling